Start a Business
Start a Business has two paths. The export path takes you from zero to a first sale abroad, with six worked game plans. The Main Street path covers ten local businesses from a cleaning company to a franchise. Both come with budgets, permits and licenses, funding programs, marketing, hiring and a directory of free helpers.
Two goals. One country. Your business can serve either.
MoneyDesk exists to help people start businesses — not as a hobby, but because more owners solve two national problems at once. Every guide, idea and tracker on this site belongs to one of the two goals below. Pick the one that fits you; many businesses end up doing both.
🌎 Export more — shrink the trade deficit
America sells a record amount abroad and still buys about $73 billion a month more than it sells. Small firms are 97% of all exporters yet produce only a third of export value, and 99% of small businesses never export at all. The products and the demand exist; what is missing is sellers. A complete, mostly free support system (export assistance centers, embassy matchmaking, SBA export loans, state grants, EXIM insurance) is waiting to be used.
- Playbooks for first-time exporters, step by step
- An idea bank of what the world buys from America
- A private launch tracker
- The research white paper “The Open Door” and a printable field manual
🏪 Build on Main Street — a robust economy at home
Small businesses are 99.9% of American firms and employ nearly half of the private workforce. When a family opens a shop, a route, a trade or a service, the money stays in town, the owner builds an asset instead of a paycheck, and the local economy gets sturdier. Owner retirements are listing proven businesses for sale every day — buying one is a path too.
- Game plans for the businesses that work in every town
- Budgets, permits, licenses, funding, first customers, hiring
- A private launch tracker
- A white paper and a printable field manual for Main Street
Exports fit you if…
- You make, grow, process or can source something physical — food, parts, equipment, materials, consumer goods — or sell a service that travels (software, design, engineering, education, consulting).
- You can handle paperwork with patience: labels, certificates, shipping documents. The agencies help, free.
- You are comfortable selling to people you will rarely meet, mostly by e-mail, video and trade shows.
- You want a business whose ceiling is the world, not the county.
Main Street fits you if…
- You have a skill people nearby pay for — trades, care, food, cleaning, repair, fitness, retail, professional services.
- You want customers you can see, reviews you can earn, and a route or a storefront you can drive past.
- You would rather start small and cash-flow positive than raise money.
- You want an asset you can sell one day, or one you can buy from a retiring owner now.
- Guides & game plans — the sequence from idea to first sale, with budgets and the permits that actually apply.
- Idea banks — concrete businesses with the why, the numbers and the catch.
- Launch Tracker — a private checklist that remembers where you are (sign in).
- White papers — the research and the sources behind each goal.
- Field manuals — every chapter as one printable reference.
- Household tools — budget, debt payoff and an emergency fund, because a business is safer on a stable household (Secure Your Future).
Read the guides · Everything else on Moneydesks
About Moneydesks
MoneyDesk is a free, all-in-one stock market dashboard and personal-finance tool. Check any ticker with live quotes and charts, practice with a paper-trading portfolio, and get a plain-English action plan for the stocks you really own.
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Personal finance
Debt payoff planner (avalanche vs snowball) · emergency-fund tracker · bill reminders · savings goals · financial education for beginners.
Starting a business — two goals
MoneyDesk helps people start businesses with two goals for the country: export businesses that sell American goods and services abroad and shrink the trade deficit, and Main Street businesses that make families better off and the economy robust. Step-by-step game plans — budgets, permits, licenses, funding programs, marketing, hiring — plus a private launch tracker, printable field manuals and research white papers.
MoneyDesk is an educational simulation — not financial advice. Paper trading uses no real money and places no real trades.
Sections you can open directly
Market Dashboard · News & Economy · Dow 30, S&P 500 and Nasdaq-100 constituents · Backtest a Strategy · Model Portfolios · Best Buys: Contrarian Value Screen · Short-Term Trading Setups · Dividend Capture Strategy · Stock Screener · Investing 101 · Today's Rates: Savings, CDs, Treasuries, I Bonds · Secure Your Future: the 12 moves, in order · Start a Business · Money Theft & Financial Forensics · Paying for College · Community Board · Export Business: sell what America makes to the world · The Open Door: a white paper on the export opportunity · Main Street Business: open the doors in your town · Main Street: a white paper on small business by the numbers
Guides you can read without the app
Money basics in plain English · Starting an export business · Starting a Main Street business · all guides